Nora Powell met his gaze briefly, flushed and turned away. "I—I had forgotten all about it, Doctor," she said.
"Now, that," approved Gary, "is something to really be thankful for. Well, it's almost time for our appointment. Let's go down and see how Flick's making out."
Thus it was that Gary Lane and the girl were a full half hour earlier in reaching the projection room than had been agreed. On such small hinges is the gateway of Fortune hung. For had they been ten minutes, perhaps a single moment later, the great adventure which was to befall them might have ended ere it began. Laughing Flick Muldoon might never have laughed again, and the precious evidence which he and Gary had brought back from Luna might never have been viewed by understanding eyes.
For when young Dr. Lane pushed open the projection room door, it was to peer into a chamber not brilliantly alight, as he had expected, but one Stygian-draped in darkness. Even so, he was not at first alarmed. Flick's prints must surely be ready by now, but it was quite possible the cameraman was testing his equipment. Gary called cheerfully, "Hey, Flick! Why the blackout? O.Q. to come in—Say! What's wrong?"
Because his only answer was a deep, choking groan. And even as the girl behind him mouthed an incoherent cry of warning, Gary got the illumination he had asked for—but in an unwanted way. The darkness was suddenly, fiercely stabbed with a livid flare, an undulating streamer of light from the opposite end of the room. A crackling, hissing ochre finger of light which seemed to burn with an inward malevolence of its own.
And where this dirty glare struck matter, walls and drapes, woodwork and plastic, metal instruments and decorative vines, all—with a dreadful sort of impotent homogeneity—burst into sudden and spontaneous flame! By the light of the burning furniture, Gary glimpsed a dim, uncertain figure huddled in the doorway opposite—and from the hands of this unknown arsonist leaped the living flame!
Gary Lane could claim no heroism for what he did; his actions were too impulsive, too instinctive, to be considered real bravery. It never occurred to him that his enemy was armed where he was not, nor that the light-streamer devouring all else in the room could just as easily strip his flesh from his bones like tinfoil over a candleflame. All he knew was that somewhere in this room, Flick Muldoon lay hurt—perhaps dead!—and that documents on which depended the future of all mankind were being imperiled by a mysterious assailant.
Soundlessly, but with the speed of a striking panther, he hurled himself across the room. In the unreal tawny-black his body could have been, at best, but a dimly glimpsed bulk. The lethal flame did not turn in his direction, scorching him instantly out of existence. And then—
And then his shoulders met sturdy flesh with a solid impact; the stranger grunted meatily and staggered backward. Gary's hands groped, clawing, for the flame weapon ... felt his fingers burn on superheated metal....